Page 12 of Offside

"We know both of the events," Marchetti said. "We don't know what conversation moved through their offices between them. Let me ask before you decide what they mean."

"It's a medical file. That's all it is."

"In a contract year, which means it's also a valuation document. We can object to how they use it. We can't pretend they don't have it."

I looked through the windshield at the dark glass window over the staff entrance. Declan would already be inside. He arrived before the sun and before most of the equipment crew.

"The file's accurate," I said.

"I didn't say it wasn't, Colt. I said it gives them language. Reduced. Modified. Reassess. Those words shorten the term they offer when a player is thirty-one."

I tightened my grip on the phone. "They offered four years in August."

"Four at three-point-four, with a response deadline we let pass because both of us believed there was more on the table. That offer is gone."

I knew that. Marchetti had sent me three separate reminders before the deadline and called twice the day it expired. We'd let it go because the club wanted the discount of an early deal without paying for the season I was about to have.

That had been before Volkov hit me in a corner and my right arm stopped working. "Get it back," I said.

"That's the job. But the conversation has changed. They don't have to argue you can't contribute. They can argue they won't guarantee four years to a defenseman whose shoulder needs a management plan before opening night."

"It needed a plan in August."

Marchetti's answer came without a pause. "Not in their contract file."

My right hand tightened on the phone. "Pryce didn't send them anything that wasn't true."

Marchetti took a moment before he answered.

"I'm not coming after your PT," Marchetti said. "I'm telling you what management will do with the record. Let me handle that part. You handle the ice."

"I have been."

"Keep doing it. And don't give them new footage today."

The line went dead. I stayed in the truck until the clock on the dash changed twice, then put the phone in my coat and went inside. The practice plan had a corner-pressure drill after rush work. Reeves paired Garrett and me against Theo, Hayes, and Volkov. One forward retrieved below the goal line, one supported along the wall, one found the slot. We had to kill the possession and move the puck cleanly out.

First rep, Theo beat me to the puck. I closed the lane behind the net and made him reverse it. Garrett pinned Hayes at the wall. Volkov drifted high, waiting for the loose puck, but it never came. Garrett moved it to me and I sent it off the glass.

On the second rep, Hayes tried to carry the puck through my side. I kept my stick inside his hands and forced him below the line. He made the right play and dropped it back to Theo.

On the third, Volkov came into the corner first. He got his hips between me and the puck. I could have held the inside lane and waited for Garrett to close from the other side. That was the drill. Two men, one decision, no need to turn a routine rep into a collision.

The words "reduced," "modified," and "reassess" stayed in front of me. I drove through Volkov's right side.

He hit the glass hard. The puck kicked free, but so did his stick. It spun across the ice and stopped near the bottom of the circle.

The whistle went, and Volkov turned toward me slowly. "That was enthusiastic."

"You lost the puck."

"I also lost several organs."

"They'll grow back." I pointed toward his stick.

Reeves skated in from the boards. He didn't raise his voice.

"Bishop, out."